Prices were mixed over the past week. Recent rainfall ended up being less than forecast, allowing farmers the opportunity to get more crop seeded. However, planting progress is still behind normal and many acres were planted under less than ideal conditions.

As of June 9, 83% of US corn was planted where usually they’re finished by then. This means nearly 16 million acres aren’t in and much of that is in important states like Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and South Dakota. US corn was rated at 57 % good and excellent while last year it was rated at 77 %.

Soybeans were 60% in the ground, much below normal at 88%. Only 34% were emerged by June 9, well behind the 73% for the 5-year average. The eastern belt, which includes Ontario, is the furthest behind.

Today (June 11) USDA released their monthly demand/supply report. They lowered old crop corn exports 100 million bushels, raising the carryout (CO) by a like amount to 2.2 billion. The old crop soybean CO exports were lowered 75 million bushels, pushing the CO to a new record 1.070 billion bushels.

New crop corn was a better story. Acres were lowered 3 million for obvious reasons and yield was dropped 10 bushels/acre to 166 bushels/acre. Usage dropped 425 million bushels also, but the CO could still drop to 1.675 billion. That is down 810 million from what was predicted last month and over 23 % from 2018/19.

The new crop soybean yield and acres were left unchanged from the May report. Demand was also left unchanged, so the CO is expected to be over 1 billion bushels again. Not as rosy an outlook here.

Prices reacted as expected on the “news” with corn gaining 12 cents and soybeans up only 1. It now takes less than 2 bushels of corn to equal a bushel of soybeans. Corn should be the price leader all year, as it needs heat units to mature.

The outlook for the balance of June is for below normal temperatures and above rainfall for the entire Midwest (and Ontario). The late planting and even later emergence will likely make temperatures a key variable to watch all summer.

The buying binge by large speculators has been historic. In 3 weeks, they bought 370,000 corn contracts or 1.85 billion bushels. That’s 175 million bushels more than the total carryout the US is expecting for the new crop year!

Specs are still short soybeans and wheat, but not near as short. Three weeks ago, they were short a record 719.000 combined grain futures; now they’re only short 105,000. That means they bought over 3 billion bushels. Wow.

Volatility will be the norm. It feels to me like we will need near ideal weather all summer to achieve the fundamentals that USDA reported today. Things have sure changed in the past month.